It's All About Respect

For those readers who know of me personally will understand how difficult what I am about to share. I am extremely pro-education, and therefore pro-teacher. I witnessed something at the RUSD board meeting Monday that has bothered me all week.

As you recall, Monday the board voted to ratify the 2005-2007 and 2007-2009 RUSD teacher contracts. As to be expected, the Racine Taxpayers Association showed up in force; some of them spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting. Now I understand that the 10 or 20 REA members present at Monday's meeting are not a fair representation of the 1600 hard-working and honorable teachers employed by RUSD, but their behavior was disgraceful and embarrassing.

They did not give any respect to the citizens who took time out of their day to speak their mind and voice their concerns about the teacher contract; they were shouting, laughing and swearing while these mostly senior citizens were talking. It was more a long- shore men union meeting than a school district’s business meeting! Even the union president was embarrassed; she kept turning around and motioning for them to quiet down. I found the “It’s All About Respect” slogan on the backs of their REA shirts somewhat ironic …

The other incident is even more disturbing. During one of the breaks, our esteemed leader and CEO found it necessary to call a taxpayer an ***hole when questioned on some executive decisions that had been made. If our leader cannot even respect the taxpayer that contributes to his salary, how do you think he treats his employees?

It is “all about respect”, and until we all learn some, nothing in RUSD will ever change.